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SOGP

Sound GroupC
Nasdaq / Media & Entertainment
Last Price
At close
2026-06-02
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2026-03-31
Investor release

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Earnings documents stored for SOGP.

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Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-03-31

Sound Group Inc. Reports Unaudited Financial Results for the Second Half and Fiscal Year 2025

GlobeNewswire

SINGAPORE, March 31, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sound Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SOGP) (“SOGP” or the “Company” or “We”), a global AI-powered audio company, today announced its unaudited financial results for the six months and fiscal year ended December 31, 2025. Second Half 2025 Financial and Operational Highlights Net revenues were RMB1,745.1 million (US$249.5 million), representing a 58% increase from RMB1,107.8 million for the same period last year. Net income was RMB153.1 million (US$21.9 million), compared with a net loss of RMB44.5 million for the same period last year. Fiscal Year 2025 Financial and Operational Highlights Net revenues were RMB3,102.8 million (US$443.7 million), representing a 53% increase from RMB2,031.8 million in 2024. Net income was RMB220.6 million (US$31.6 million), compared with a net loss of RMB81.0 million in 2024. Mr. Jinnan (Marco) Lai, Founder and CEO of SOGP, commented, “2025 was a remarkable year for Sound Group, highlighted by a 53% year-over-year increase in net revenues and a return to profitability. These results reflect the progress we are making in expanding our audio-centric ecosystem and the growing revenue contribution from our AI initiatives.” “Throughout the year, we enhanced user engagement by expanding our audio content offerings while actively deploying AI technologies to optimize operational efficiency and drive product innovation. In addition, we accelerated the development of our international AI initiatives and further advanced our capabilities in voice AI technologies, including automatic speech recognition, speech synthesis, and real-time audio intelligence. Leveraging our deep expertise in the audio industry, we developed the SoundSphere technology system to power future AI-driven applications. In January 2026, we officially launched SoundSphereAI, a platform that showcases our technological capabilities and ongoing development within the SoundSphere ecosystem. Looking ahead, we will continue strengthening our technology, product, and data flywheel to deliver sustainable, long-term value to our stakeholders. We believe that the combination of strong underlying infrastructure, growing international traction, and a clear product roadmap will provide a solid foundation for long-term value creation.” Ms. Chengfang Lu, Acting CFO of SOGP, said, “We delivered a strong financial performance in 2025, with significan...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-08-28

Sound Group Inc. Reports First Half of 2025 Unaudited Financial Results

GlobeNewswire

SINGAPORE, Aug. 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sound Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SOGP) (“SOGP” or the “Company” or “We”), a global audio-centric social and entertainment company, today announced its unaudited financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2025. First Half of 2025 Financial and Operational Highlights Net revenues were RMB1,357.7 million (US$189.5 million) for the six months ended June 30, 2025, representing a 47% increase from RMB924.0 million for the six months ended June 30, 2024. Net income was RMB67.6 million (US$9.4 million) for the six months ended June 30, 2025, compared with net loss of RMB36.5 million for the six months ended June 30, 2024. Average total mobile MAUs1 for the six months ended June 30, 2025 was 30.4 million, compared with 35.7 million for the six months ended June 30, 2024. Mr. Jinnan (Marco) Lai, Founder and CEO of SOGP, commented, “For the six months ended June 30, 2025, we delivered solid revenue growth and a return to profitability through outstanding strategic execution. We continued to enhance user engagement by enriching our interactive experiences and further expanding our audio entertainment business’s content ecosystem. In addition, our expanding international AI initiatives, a strategic growth plan to build and scale a diversified AI product portfolio for global markets, began to contribute to revenue growth. By leveraging advanced AI technologies, we improved operational efficiency and accelerated the delivery of high-quality content, enabling us to respond swiftly to evolving user preferences and industry dynamics. With this resilient foundation in place, we are well-prepared to carry this momentum forward and create enduring value for our users, creators, and shareholders alike.” Ms. Chengfang Lu, Acting Chief Financial Officer of SOGP, said, “During the first half year of 2025, our total revenues reached RMB1,357.7 million, up 47% year-over-year. We achieved net profit of approximately RMB67.6 million, a significant improvement from a net loss in the same period last year, underscoring the resilience and scalability of our business model. Additionally, our strong balance sheet provides us with the flexibility to invest in growth initiatives while also returning value to shareholders through our US$4 million share repurchase program approved in June and our special cash dividend declared today. Looking ahead,...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-05-02

Sound Group Full Year 2024 Earnings: CN¥15.77 loss per share (vs CN¥24.93 loss in FY 2023)

Simply Wall St.

Revenue: CN¥2.03b (down 1.9% from FY 2023). Net loss: CN¥81.0m (loss narrowed by 40% from FY 2023). CN¥15.77 loss per share (improved from CN¥24.93 loss in FY 2023). This technology could replace computers: discover the 20 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality. All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Sound Group shares are down 36% from a week ago. We don't want to rain on the parade too much, but we did also find 2 warning signs for Sound Group (1 doesn't sit too well with us!) that you need to be mindful of. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

TranscriptFY2023 Q32023-11-30

FY2023 Q3 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 5 paragraphs
Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for LIZHI INC.'s Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Please note, all participants are in a listen-only mode now and today’s conference call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to your host, Effy Kang, Head of Capital Markets for the company. Please go ahead.

Effy Kang

Thank you very much. Hello everyone, and welcome to the LIZHI INC.'s third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. We released our financial and operating results via Newswire services earlier today, and they are available online. Participants on today's call will include our Founder and CEO, Mr. Marco Lai; and our Acting CFO, Ms. Chengfang Lu. Management will begin with prepared remarks, introducing business development and financial performance in the third quarter. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the IR section of our website at ir.lizhi.fm. Before we continue, please note that today's discussions will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements typically contain words such as may, will, expect, target, estimate, intend, believe, potential, continue or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated, many of which factors are beyond our control. The company, its affiliates, advisers, representatives and underwriters do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking information except as required under the applicable law. Please also note that LIZHI's earnings press release and this conference call includes discussions of unaudited GAAP financial measures as well as the unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to LIZHI's earnings press release for reconciliation of unaudited non-GAAP measures to unaudited GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to our Founder and CEO, Mr. Marco Lai. Please go ahead.

Jinnan Lai

[Foreign Language] Hello everyone, thank you for joining LIZHI INC.'s third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. [Foreign Language] In the third quarter of 2023, we further strengthened the execution of our online audio-centric globalization strategy, leveraging our long-term technological assets. We consistently empowered domestic business innovation, while steadily advancing our global business, fostering a vibrant and diversified ecosystem. In the third quarter of 2023, our revenue reached the RMB425 million. Our total average mobile MAUs amounted to 42.1 million, and our average monthly paying users totaled 402.6 thousand. Despite macro-headwinds, we steadfastly pursued the course we had charted, reinforcing our commitment to our long-term vision. During the quarter, we continued to reduce costs and increase operating efficiency to improve organizational efficiency and agility, while also reinforcing our globalization capabilities to better support the development of our diverse spectrum of businesses. Now let me go over our business developments during the third quarter. [Foreign Language] In terms of our audio entertainment business, we remain committed to building a healthy and sustainable product ecosystem. Through proactive optimization of our operating strategies and meticulous refinement of our mechanisms for expanding and nurturing our content creator base, we have enhanced the creator quality and increased the scale of our creator base, while also solidifying our platform's competitive edges. During the quarter, in addition to the continuous optimization of our content creator platform, we launched the Starlight Challenge [ph], a strategic initiative designed to cultivate mid and long-term content creators and motivate our top tier contributors. This program empowered content creators to showcase their distinctive vocal talents for the unlocking their creative potential, while also elevating the platform's appeal to the content creator community. [Foreign Language] In addition, we strove to improve the user experience and attract more high-quality users through enriched content offerings and product innovations. During the quarter, based on user preferences, we added a suite of carefully curated modules to enrich our content genres, providing our users with more diverse and engaging content options. Furthermore, we continue to iterate our product design and cultivate new product features and engagement tools, harnessing cutting edge technologies to introduce innovative audio-based interaction experiences. We sustain active user participation through a diverse array of marketing programs and themed events, augmenting both user sickness and engagement. [Foreign Language] As for our global innovative business, we are deeply invested in delighting our users with next-generation social networking products. By integrating advanced features including cross device functionality, real-time capabilities, AIGC technologies and more, we continue to refine our product interface and functionality. We leverage advanced technologies to empower product innovation capturing to diverse user needs. Meanwhile, we endeavor to improve user experience -- user engagement by enhancing the network effect of our offerings, thereby fostering organic user growth. Organizational wise, as we continue to boost our localization capabilities across product development, operations and other key areas, we have also taken a collaborative cross team approach to product innovation to increase innovative productivity. Moving forward, we will continue developing international markets reinforcing globalization capabilities and ultimately accelerating the expansion of our global footprint. [Foreign Language] With respect to technological advancement, we continue to strengthen our R&D capabilities to provide more customized product support. This internally empowers product innovation and drives progress across our global business. We have also consistently deepened the integration and development of multi-model AIGC technologies into our innovative business framework. Through motion-enhanced model training and algorithm optimization, we are fortifying our AI assets unlocking vast opportunities for ongoing product innovation. On voice technologies, we have been constantly improving the stability and performance of automatic speech recognition and text to speech ASR and TTS for both Chinese and English languages, adapting them for diverse scenarios. We have also achieved the breakthroughs in AI voice changing technology, including a seamless integration to DOREME, our in-house RTC platform for real-time audio and video streaming. In the meantime, we further enhance the quality of information transmission on our IM platform, VoderX, empowering our business with high performance, low latency and scalable customized instant messaging capabilities. In terms of our versatile technology platform construction, we further improve the data analytics and data management systems and apply the AI technology to marketing and other fields. Collectively, these initiatives have improved overall operating efficiency. In general, we believe technological advancements are the cornerstone of business development. We remain committed to pursuing industry-leading technological standards and continually fortifying our core technological capabilities to empower the business development. [Foreign Language] We are delighted to announce that last month the company was awarded as one of China's top 100 internet companies by the Internet Society of China. This marks the fifth consecutive year that we have received this honor, representing powerful recognition of our comprehensive capabilities by the Internet Society of China and the broader industry. Going forward, despite the macro challenges, we will spare no effort in proactively refining our business strategies and building a more competitive ecosystem. We will continue to improve our core technology capabilities, while also adopting and more deeply integrating AIGC and voice AI technologies throughout business. Meanwhile, we will further streamline our operations and improve the effectiveness of resource allocation, propelling the company's long-term sustainable development with fresh momentum. [Foreign Language] Thank you all. With that, I will now turn the call over to our acting CFO, Ms. Chengfang Lu, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Chengfang Lu

Okay. Thank you, Marco, and hello everyone. Our net revenues in the third quarter of 2023 were on RMB425.1 million. Despite the complex backdrop and market uncertainties and persisted, we remain steadfast in strengthening our core competitiveness through technological innovation during the third quarter. Moving forward, we remain committed to further enhancing organizational efficiency, developing globalization capability, and enhancing overall agility, positioning us to deliver enduring value to our stakeholders. Now, I'd like to provide a brief overview of our financial results for the third quarter of 2023. In this quarter, our total net revenues were RMB425.1 million compared with on RMB565.2 million in the same period of last year, primary due to the decline in average paying users and user spending on our audio entertainment products. Cost of revenue was on RMB317.3 million in this quarter compared with on RMB376.2 million in the same period of last year. Many attributable to the decreased revenue share fees, share-based compensation expenses, payment handling costs, and other miscellaneous costs. Gross profit was RMB107.8 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared with RMB189.1 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP gross profit was RMB107.9 million in this quarter compared with RMB190.8 million in the same period of last year. Gross margin in this quarter of 2023 was 25% compared with 33% in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP gross margin in this quarter was 25% compared with 34% in the same period of last year. Operating expenses were RMB167.9 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared with RMB176.6 million in the same period of last year. Research and development expenses were RMB83.8 million in the third quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 7% year-over-year, primary due to the increased salary and welfare benefits expenses, related to increased severance pay to optimize the RD efficiency, partially offset by the decreased expenses related to research and development services provided by third parties. Selling and marketing expenses were RMB59.1 million in this quarter compared with RMB71.2 million in the same period of last year, primary attributable to decreased branding and marketing expenses. The company will monitor its discretionary advertising and promotion expenses, and adjusted economy depending on marketing conditions. General and administrative expenses were RMB25.1 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared with RMB27.1 million in the same period of last year, primary driven by decreased professional service fees provided by third parties, provision for litigation contingencies, and other miscellaneous expenses. Operating loss was RMB60.1 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared with operating income of RMB12.5 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP operating loss was RMB55 million in this quarter compared with non-GAAP operating income of RMB12.2 million in the same period of last year. Other expenses were RMB5.9 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared with other income of RMB1.7 million in the same period of last year, primary attributable to the remuneration fees to the deposit back in relation to the ratio change of ADF on September 20, 2023. Net loss was RMB62 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared with the income of RMB19.8 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP net loss was RMB56.5 million in this quarter compared with non-GAAP income of RMB27.5 million in the same period of last year. Basic and diluted net loss per ADF were both 11.01 in the third quarter of 2023 compared with basic and diluted net income of RMB3.81 and RMB3.79 per ADF in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net loss per ADF were both RMB10.07 in the third quarter of 2023 compared with non-GAAP basic and diluted net income of RMB5.29 and RMB5.26 per ADF in the same period of last year. As of September 13, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash of RMB615.8 million. Okay. This concludes all of our prepared remarks. Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact LIZHI's investor relations through the contact information provided on our website ir.lizhi.fm or Piacente Financial Communications.

End of Q&A

Thank you. This concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you. Have a good day.

TranscriptFY2023 Q22023-08-30

FY2023 Q2 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 6 paragraphs
Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for Lizhi Inc.'s Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to your host, Effy Kang, Head of Capital Markets for the company. Please go ahead.

Effy Kang

Thank you very much. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Lizhi Inc.'s second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. We released our financial and operating results via Newswire services earlier today, and they are available online. Participants on today's call will include our Founder and CEO, Mr. Marco Lai; our COO, Mr. Zelong Li; and our acting CFO, Mr. Chengfang Lu. Mr. Li and Mr. Lu will begin with prepared remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the IR section of our website at ir.lizhi.fm. Before we continue, please note that today's discussions will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements typically contain words such as may, will, expect, target, estimate, intend, believe, potential, continue or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated, many of which factors are beyond our control. The company, its affiliates, advisers, representatives and underwriters do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking information, except as required under the applicable law. Please also note that Lizhi's earnings press release and this conference call includes discussions of unaudited GAAP financial measures as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to Lizhi's earnings press release for a reconciliation of unaudited non-GAAP measures to unaudited GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to our COO, Mr. Zelong Li. Please go ahead.

Zelong Li

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Lizhi Inc.'s second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. In the second quarter of 2023, we remain committed to executing our online audio-centric globalization strategy by seizing [ph] on advancing core technologies, optimizing product features and elevating user experience. We are actively fostering a thriving business ecosystem. Despite macro challenges in the second quarter, the company's revenue increased by 15% year-over-year to RMB593 million. Our total average mobile MAUs amounted to 45.6 million, and our average monthly paying users totaled 433,700. We also achieved a net income of RMB11.6 million. Now let me go over our business developments during the second quarter. With respect to the audio entertainment business, we effectively enliven the atmosphere across the community by further implementing refined operational management and introducing more diversified themed activities. For example, early -- midyear voice gala activities strengthened the connections and interactions between our content creators and the users. We also launched the area of themed activities, such as our midyear podcast week, featuring a special season with national college examination, which encourage the quality content creators to actively participate in our programs. Many popular content creators include Beijing Talk, [indiscernible] Radio were featured on our livestreaming sessions, gladly sharing their personal store and thoughts to inspire young minds. We diversified our content matrix with offerings that better suited young users, diverse taste and preferences, delighting our users with enriched audio-based interaction experience. Going forward, we will continue to roll out innovative product functions and additional activity formats to closely connect our content creators and users, fostering more immersive audio entertainment experiences and promoting a virtual cycle across our vibrant community and ecosystem. Furthermore, we will continue exploring innovative product features in reaching our product matrix and providing our users with highly differentiated product experiences. For our content creator ecosystem, we continue to upgrade our creative management system and support the wide area of content creators with differentiated customized development solutions, helping them grow and flourish on our platform. For example, in the second quarter, we focused on our content creators diverse growth needs with our newly launched the summer success program for streamer development and providing meaningful support to enhance their capabilities and skill sets through our refined operational management system. We also involved the young generation in content planning. We set up a rising star official channel in support of our outstanding emerging content creators and worked with them to conceive inspirational ideas for high-quality content creation, helping our rising stars attract more users and grow faster. By improving our greater management system, we hope to continuously attract and cultivate more talented content creators further enriching the content offerings across our platform. Regarding our global business, we continue to empower product innovation through core technologies, accelerating the upgrade and integration of our diversified product functions and further propelling the development of our global business. Last quarter, we launched the chatbot, MY AI FRIEND in TIYA App, our global audio-based social networking product. And since then, we have consistently enriched the user experience with various new product functions. In May this year, we leveraged our large pool of avatars to launch over 10 virtual AI preset companions, spanning characters such as musicians, DJ Fresh and game consultant, Alex. This new companions cater to TIYA users' diverse needs and interest enabling a smarter and more engaging virtual online social experience. Users can also create and customize their own exclusive AI brands through preset to enjoy unique virtual online social experiences. In July, we launched a new expressive Animated Avatar feature for users to customize the MY AI FRIEND, which enables users to add more realistic micro gestures and the facial expressions to their AI friends, further enhancing interactions across the platform. Thanks to our consistent innovation in voice AI technologies, all our users can now access our customized AI friends with share function. This feature empowers AI friends to speak and move more naturally to accommodate extensive social networking scenarios, establishing a deeper emotional connection between users and their AI companions. Going forward, we will further advance our global positioning through constant product innovation and push forward with product localization, strengthening the foundation of our global pacific expansion and commercialization efforts. In the meantime, we continue to build our capabilities in core technologies, including AI and audio processing and transmission, empowering business development through technological innovation. On the product front, we further optimize the integrated relevant product functions and launch the more diverse innovative features based on AIGC and voice AI technologies, laying a solid foundation for our products commercial application. For operations, we comprehensively applied our sales development technologies, effectively reducing technical cost and improving operational efficiency. As we move forward, we will continue enhancing research and development in the AI field, exploring applicable AI technology scenarios and making the most of our advantages in voice-based technologies, ultimately amazing our users with incredible next-generation social networking experiences. Looking ahead, despite macro challenges, we will go all out to elevate our product competitiveness through innovative products, optimize the ecosystem and the refined operations. Moreover, we will continue to adopt and more deeply integrate AIGC and voice AI technologies, AI chatbots and AI assistance across our business, continuously empowering business development through technological innovation and further advancing our global expansion. Thank you all. With that, I will now turn the call over to our acting CFO, Ms. Chengfang Lu, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Chengfang Lu

Thank you, Zelong, and hello, everyone. We maintained year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter of 2023, while focusing on building a sustainable and innovation-driven ecosystem. Moving forward, we will continue strengthening core technologies to spur ongoing product development and promote global business expansion over the long term. Now I'd like to provide a brief overview of our financial results for the second quarter of 2023. In the second quarter, our total net revenues were RMB592.9 million, representing an increase of 15% year-over-year as we continue to diversify our audio entertainment product matrix. Cost of revenues were RMB418.4 million in the second quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 23% year-over-year, mainly attributable to increased revenue sharing fees to our content creators, increased salary and welfare benefits related to increased average salary and increased payment handling costs, partially offset by a decline in other miscellaneous costs. Gross profit was RMB174.4 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB175.6 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP gross profit was RMB175.6 million in the second quarter of this year compared with RMB176.8 million in the same period of last year. Gross margin in the second quarter of 2023 was 29% compared with 34% in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP gross margin in the second quarter of this year was 30% compared with 34% in the same period of last year. Operating expenses were RMB166.6 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB161.6 million in the same period of last year. Research and development expenses were RMB75.2 million in the second quarter of this year compared with RMB70.3 million in the same period of last year, primarily due to increased salary and welfare benefits related to the increase in the number of our R&D staff and increased rental expenses, partially offset by decreased share-based compensation expenses and expenses related to research and development services provided by third parties. Selling and marketing expenses were RMB67.5 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB60.8 million in the same period of last year, primarily attributable to increased branding and marketing expenses and increased salary and welfare benefits related to the increase in the number of our sales in marketing staff. We will monitor our advertising and promotion expenses and adjust accordingly based on market conditions. General and administrative expenses were RMB23.9 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB30.6 million in the same period of last year, mainly driven by decreased provision for litigation contingencies, professional service fees, share-based compensation expenses and other miscellaneous expenses, partially offset by increased salary and welfare benefits related to the increased average salary. Operating income was RMB7.8 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB14.1 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP operating income was RMB13.6 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB21.2 million in the same period of last year. Net income was RMB11.6 million in the second quarter of this year compared with RMB18.9 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP net income was RMB17.3 million in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB26 million in the same period of last year. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB0.25 and RMB0.24, respectively, in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB0.37 and RMB0.36 respectively, in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS were both RMB0.35 in the second quarter of 2023 compared with RMB0.50 in the same period of last year. As of June 30, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and restricted cash of RMB697.1 million. Okay. This concludes all of our prepared remarks today. Now I would like to turn the call to Effy for the closing remarks.

Effy Kang

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact Lizhi's Investor Relations through the contact information provided on our website, ir.lizhi.fm, or the Piacente Group Investor Relations. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

TranscriptFY2023 Q12023-05-25

FY2023 Q1 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 13 paragraphs
Operator

Hello ladies and gentlemen! Thank you for standing by for Lizhi Inc.’s, First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I'll now like to turn the call over to your host, Effy Kang, Head of Capital Markets for the company. Please go ahead.

Effy Kang

Thank you very much. Hello everyone! And welcome to Lizhi Inc.’s first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. We released our financial and operating results via newswire services earlier today and they are available online. Participants on today's call will include our Founder and CEO, Mr. Marco Lai; our COO, Mr. Zelong Li; and our Acting CFO, Mr. Chengfang Lu. Mr. Li and Mr. Lu will begin with prepared remarks, and the call will conclude with a Q&A session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, our earnings highlights presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the IR section of our website at ir.lizhi.fm. Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements typically contain words such as may, will, expect, target, estimate, intend, believe, potential, continue or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated, many of which factors are beyond our control. The company, its affiliates, advisors, representatives and underwriters do not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information, except as required under the applicable law. Please also note that Lizhi's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of unaudited GAAP financial measures as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to Lizhi’s earnings press release for a reconciliation of unaudited non-GAAP measures to unaudited GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to our COO, Mr. Zelong Li. Please go ahead.

Zelong Li

Hello everyone and thank you for joining Lizhi Inc.'s first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. While the first quarter of 2023 marked a fresh start, we remain committed to building a more competitive audio-based ecosystem, enriching our diversified program matrix, further unleashing our business commercialization potential, and propelling our global business expansion. In the first quarter, the company's revenue increased by 22% year-over-year to RMB 631 million. Our total average mobile MAUs amounted to 49.6 million, and our average monthly paying users totaled 471.5 thousand, powered by our core technologies and versatile technology platforms, and supported by our effective operational strategies, our net income surged by 54% sequentially, and 194% year-over-year to RMB48.3 million. In the first quarter we continued innovating and upgrading our audio entertainment product features and functions, boosting our audio entertainment's commercialization efficiency. By launching an array of highly interactive online modules, we encouraged users and content creators to interact, aiming to strengthen connections between them, as well as drive up user participation and engagement. Meanwhile, we continued extending our core content categories, bringing differentiated audio entertainment experiences to our users through innovative features. Leveraging dynamic adjustments to our operations and marketing strategies, we also effectively improved the core users' willingness to pay. With regard to our content creator ecosystem, we remain focused on cultivating the creator experience, refining operations and continuously improving the creation tools available to them, to help them grow and flourish on our platform. By implementing a creator partnership mechanism for quality content creators, we have attracted more creators to generate content while boosting their engagement and creative output. Furthermore, through our refined operations management and diversified themed activities, we succeeded in giving full play to the value creativity of our quality content creators. For example, we launched the themed activities such as special sessions featuring quality hosts and linked them to trending topics in order to enhance interaction in the audio-centric community, helping our content creators attract more followers and generate income. Regarding our global business, we remain committed to relentlessly approach our innovation by applying our core technologies. We aim to build an AI chatbot platform and ultimately promote further development of our global business. This February, we launched a chatbot module in our global audio-based social networking product, TIYA App, leveraging the GPT model. By the end of March, we further optimized the module and rolled out an upgraded version of the MY AI FRIEND chatbot to better enrich the app's online companionship experience. The newly unveiled MY AI FRIEND chatbot is designed for users to create their ideal online friends and have a more tailored AI-enabled chat experience. Users may create dedicated AI FRIEND’s and generate tailored profiles by leveraging the customization functions of MY AI FRIEND’s. With the launch of the upgraded version, we are pleased to see that more users are willing to share MY AI FRIEND with their peers, enhancing new app engagement and significantly improving the usage time. Building upon the company's strong technical capabilities in the audio field, we recently tested MY AI FRIEND’s voice function, aiming to provide users with a more differentiated AI voice chat experience. Going forward, we will further optimize and upgrade MY AI FRIEND features, as well as enrich our AI chatbot usage scenarios, aiming to effectively integrate our AI chatbot into our original social networking protocols and provide users with more valuable, emotional support and companionship. As we pursue the development of our global capabilities, we always follow the principle of establishing localized operations across our globalized organization. As such, we have effectively enhanced our on the ground business operations by establishing localized operational management teams. Technology-wise, we have made progress with the R&D of self-developed core technologies to fully power our product innovation, building upon the company's technology capabilities, strong expertise in the field of voice-based social networking and online companionship, and years of operational experience, coupled with technological breakthroughs in ASR, TTS and other voice AI areas. We intend to further explore the application of audio-based AI chatbots. We also remain committed to bringing a more differentiated online companionship experience to our users. In summary, Lizhi achieved solid growth in the first quarter of 2023 across all business segments. Looking ahead, we will continue to power product innovation through technology development while actively advancing our global positioning. Thank you all. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Acting CFO, Ms. Chengfang Lu, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Chengfang Lu

Thank you, Zelong, and hello everyone. We are delighted to see that in the first quarter of 2023 our revenue increased by 22% year-over-year to a new high of RMB631 million. In addition, we achieved ongoing profitability with net income of RMB48.3 million, up 54% sequentially and 194% year-over-year. Looking ahead, we will continue to improve our operating efficiency. Now, I’d like to provide a brief overview of our financial results for the first quarter of 2023. In the first quarter, our total net revenue through RMB631 million represented an increase of 22% year-over-year, primarily due to the growth in the average user spending on our audio entertainment products, driven by diversified themed activities and optimization of marketing strategies. Cost of revenue was RMB434.6 million in the first quarter, representing an increase of 25% year-over-year, mainly attributable to an increase in revenue sharing fees to our content creators, payment handling costs and bandwidth costs as we expanded our business, partially offset by a decline in other miscellaneous costs. Gross profit was RMB196.4 million in the first quarter of 2023 compared with RMB168.1 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP gross profit was RMB198.2 million in the first quarter of this year, compared with RMB170.7 million in the first quarter of last year. Gross margin for the first quarter of 2023 was 31%, compared with 32% in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP gross margin for the first quarter of 2023 was 31% compared with 33% in the same period of last year. Operating expenses were RMB153.7 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB153.5 million in the same period of last year. Research and development expenses were RMB71.9 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB71.1 million in the first quarter of last year, primarily due to increasing salary and welfare benefits expenses and share-based compensation expenses, partially offset by a decline in expenses related to research and development services provided by third parties. Selling and marketing expenses were RMB58.8 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB60.0 million in the first quarter of last year, primarily attributable to the decrease in branding and marketing expenses, partially offset by the increased salary and welfare benefits expenses. The company will monitor our discretionary advertising and promotion expenses and adjust accordingly depending on market conditions. General and administrative expenses were RMB23.0 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB22.4 million in the same period of last year, mainly driven by the increase in provisions for litigation contingencies and professional service fees, partially offset by a decrease in other miscellaneous expenses. Operating income was RMB42.7 million in the first quarter, compared to RMB14.6 million in the first quarter of last year. Non-GAAP operating income was RMB52.9 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB23.4 million in the same period of last year. Net income was RMB48.3 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB16.4 million in the same period of last year. And non-GAAP net income was RMB58.5 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB25.2 million in the same period of last year. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB0.93 and RMB0.92 respectively in the first quarter of 2023 compared with RMB0.32 in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB1.12 and RMB1.11 respectively in the first quarter of 2023, compared with RMB0.49 in the first quarter of last year. As of March 31, 2023 we have cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and restricted cash of RMB731.3 million. Okay, this concludes all of our prepared remarks today, and I will now open the call for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you. Now the first question comes from the line of Vicky Wei of Citi. Please go ahead.

Vicky Wei

Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my question. I have two small questions. One is, how should we think of the monetization scale of overseas products in this year in the investment stage? And my second question is, does management notice any change of regulatory environment on the audio live streaming sector? Thank you.

Marco Lai

Thank you, Vicky. The first question is answered by Marco and I will translate for him. The first question of Vicky is about the monetization scale of the overseas products. Regarding the monetization of the overseas products, we have actually launched certain monetization models in some of those products, and mostly subscription models for now. Users can access the value-added services with the subscription. And currently we are still in the early stage of the monetization testing. So based on user feedback and market research, we will continue optimizing the monetization models, and including the revenue-generating functions and the subscription services. We expected to see a smaller proportion of the overseas revenue scale this year and there are still some uncertainties. And generally our overseas business is still in its early stage, and we plan to make further investments in marketing and localized operations and we will continue to optimize our products and validate our business models. The second question is about the regulatory environment in the live-streaming sector. Regarding the industry regulations, we have noticed that some live-streaming peers were facing some regulatory monitoring recently, and we have noticed that the regulatory efforts have been strengthened with stricter standards and regulations. So for this, we will reinforce the overall compliance management, including the content safety and security, and the management of internal systems, etc. Ensuring the content safety and security is actually our top priority. So we will conduct regular self-examinations in accordance with the latest policies to meet the overall compliance requirements.

Operator

. If there are no further questions, now I’d like to turn the call back – I beg your pardon. One moment for the next question. We have a question from the line of Serena Lee from China Securities. Please ask your question.

Serena Lee

. Thanks for taking my question and shall the management share more about the progress of the overseas business, including operational level and some of the user matrix, and as well as the outlook for the overseas business for the full year? Thanks.

Marco Lai

Thank you. . Our overseas business is steadily developing and on the product side, we have been focused on user experience optimization and the function upgrades and iterations. Since the launch of MY AI Friend chatbot in the TIYA App in the first quarter of this year, we have noticed the increase in user engagement. And currently we are continuously enhancing the relevant functions, including the recent launch of the multiple preset AI characters to provide users with an enriched online companionship experience. We are also working on iterations of the voice-based functions and users can now experience the latest upgrades on the TIYA App. We have launched the monetization models for commercialization. We will keep optimizing these models for effective validation. And additionally, we are focusing on building our global capabilities by improving our international teams to support more localized product operations and marketing and other aspects. So we will also step up investment in our overseas business, but it will be in line with the business growth. And in general, it will remain within a well-managed range. Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. As there are no further questions, now I’d like to turn the call back to the company for closing remarks.

Effy Kang

Well, thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Lizhi’s Investor Relations through the contact information provided on our website at ir.lizhi.fm or The Piacente Group Investor Relations. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.

As of 2026-05-18 • Updated weeklySource: Earnings sourceIngestion runbook